


And Other Things Besides

by SaltCore



Series: We Get What We Deserve [5]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Language, M/M, Protective Hanzo Shimada, Shimada Dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 00:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14343843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaltCore/pseuds/SaltCore
Summary: Hanzo never expected kindness from the dragons he treated with all those years ago, and yet they surprise him.





	And Other Things Besides

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably complete nonsense without the rest of the series, fair warning.

Hanzo wakes to a sudden prickling sensation, centered mostly in his hands. He clenches them, trying to dispel the feeling. It redoubles, along with a niggling urgency that is certainly not his own. Weary, he pushes back.

_Tired. Go._

The prickling inches up both his arms, and he rolls over onto his back with a soft huff. That tingling itch is _their_ preferred way of demanding proximity to Jesse. Hanzo had endured it off and on for weeks before trying to pinpoint the origin and the reason. It almost feels like circulation returning to a limb that had fallen asleep, but it strikes him seemingly at random.

He’d gone to Genji about it, hesitantly taking him aside one morning and asking if he’d ever felt something similar. After all, it was only after the revelation his brother had facilitated that he’d begun feeling such strange things. Most of his dragons’ communication he could parse and understand, but this had remained inexplicable.

Genji, looking concerned, had pressed his fingertips against Hanzo’s forearm and the aura of his dragon had expanded out and toward Hanzo. Hanzo had briefly forgotten to breathe as he felt it, no _her_ , unfurl. She brushed up against him like a gentle rain, making gooseflesh rise on his whole body as she reached for his own companions. He still doesn’t know what to make of the ability to feel her, and by extension his brother, like a sixth sense. If there are words, he doesn’t know them.

His attention was pulled back to more mundane matters when Genji had barked out a laugh and curled forward over his knees. Hanzo had jerked his hand back and crossed his arms over his chest.

“What’s so funny?” he’d asked, embarrassment giving his tone an edge.

“Your dragons think you’re easier to get along with around Jesse,” Genji said between guffaws. “To be honest, I agree.”

Genji’s ribbing had been worth the explanation in the end, even if it had been days before Genji had decided it was no longer fun to tease him. He’s tried to make sense of it in his own way. Genji is sure that their moods and health impact the dragon’s ability to communicate, that it’s a physical process as much as anything else, and that was as good a place to start as any.

As for _why_ Jesse, he’d come to a working theory after spending a few days’ worth of free time  pouring through pop science articles and a textbook Dr. Ziegler had lent him. There’s a physical response to the presence of a loved one. Of a lover. A wash of hormones to reinforce the bond, ones that suppresses the chemicals produced in stress.

Thinking of his relationship with Jesse in those terms had felt like doing him a disservice. Surely the gestalt that was their love for each other transcended simple chemistry. That thinking had also sparked a protective sense of annoyance. He had made the bargain with his dragons, allowed them the use of him, but Jesse had agreed to no such thing.

But as he’d learned to listen to them, to _converse_ , he’d learned of their genuine curiosity. They wanted to know about this recurring part of the world around him, understand him too. It was wholly unexpected. Though, as unexpected things go, it could have been worse than a fascination with his partner, ulterior motives notwithstanding. So long as they are careful.

He doesn’t know what they want from him tonight, however. Jesse is already here, sleeping beside him.

Except.

There’s a tension in his shoulders that isn’t right. He’s breathing too quickly to be sleeping peacefully, but too slowly for it to be a nightmare. Hanzo reaches out, letting his arm brush along the sheets to make a soft rustling, and runs his fingertips down Jesse’s spine. Jesse jerks, surprised, but relaxes slightly under the pressure of Hanzo’s touch. The tingling in Hanzo’s arms vanishes, but is replaced with a foreign worry constricting his chest.

“Jesse?” Hanzo whispers.

“Go back t’sleep, Han,” Jesse mumbles. His voice is rough, strained. Hanzo pushes himself up and tugs gently on Jesse’s shoulder.

“What’s wrong?”

Jesse rolls back and looks up at Hanzo. He looks exhausted, like he hasn’t slept at all tonight. Hanzo reaches out and takes his hand, running his thumb across the back. Jesse squeezes his fingers.

“Don’t worry about it, babe. It’ll pass.”

Hanzo purses his lips. So something is, in fact, wrong. Jesse closes his eyes, but his whole body is still clenched tightly. He looks like he’s in pain. That foreign worry burrows deeper, sparking a worry of Hanzo’s own.

“What is it?”

Jesse rolls his left shoulder, drawing Hanzo’s eye to his prosthesis. Of course. Jesse almost never talks about it, but he’s no stranger to phantom pain. Even when that isn’t bothering him, the weight of the prosthetic will also give him trouble in his shoulders, tight knots in his muscles that he has trouble working out on his own. Sometimes he’s waylaid by both. Hanzo wonders briefly if this was why his dragons woke him, but, regardless, now that he knows he wants to help.

Hanzo, following an instinct that might not entirely be his own, nudges Jesse to roll over onto his stomach. Jesse goes along with it, pulling his pillow under his chest and resting his head on his arms. Hanzo swings himself over Jesse’s hips, hovering just above and resting his weight on his heels.

He kneads Jesse’s shoulders just below his neck. The muscles are bound up in tense knots, and Hanzo winces in sympathy. He works at it with steady and slow dedication. Jesse groans under his touch, but it’s not a pained noise. Encouraged, Hanzo keeps going. He works carefully, pressing as hard as he dares with his thumbs, until Jesse starts to go plaint and the worry in his chest starts to uncurl.

He examines the knowledge that his dragons have been paying close enough attention to Jesse that they know when he’s hurting and force him to act.  Right now they’re helping him help Jesse, but he worries about the dangers their attention can bring. The inside of his elbow is almost always marred by needle marks. It’s trivial, but reminder enough of the constant testing Dr. Ziegler does to maintain his health. Exposing Jesse to that kind of risk is unacceptable.

Jesse sighs and stretches underneath him, then goes even limper somehow. Hanzo runs his hands lightly down and up his back, then leans forward to press a kiss to the back of Jesse’s neck.

“Better?” Hanzo asks.

“Yeah, better.”

There is still something tight in Jesse’s voice. Hanzo frowns.

“But it still hurts.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, babe, you done enough.”

Hanzo feels the tug that signals a question from his companions. He pauses to listen, still sitting over Jesse, and feels something like a breeze dancing on his skin, then _under_ his skin. They want to, to—

Hanzo jerks his hands back, pushes away from Jesse so quickly he tumbles backward off the bed. Jesse twists, wide eyed with concern. Hanzo pushes himself back, keeps going until he hits the wall.

_Nonononono—_

They reply with a sensation in his left arm, a painful spasming that makes him grit his teeth—

“Hanzo?” Jesse says, voice loud despite the late hour. Fear is an ugly thing his features, and it twists Hanzo’s stomach to see it directed at him. Jesse eases out of the bed, reaching toward Hanzo. “Hanzo, sweetness, you gotta talk to me.”

Jesse stops just short of touching, and Hanzo is grateful. His touch would be grounding, soothing, but what if the dragons decided to take that contact as permission? Hanzo clenches his left fist, trying to force the sensation away. He hates that Jesse is hurting, but they _cannot_ help. It doesn’t matter what they think, he has seen what they can do to a human body.

“Hanzo,” Jesse says again, this time pleading.

They abruptly stop whatever they’re doing to him arm, leaving him instead with their frustration buzzing under his skin like a swarm of insects. Genji may trust Kodama with anything and everything, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever have that with his own dragons. They are so much wilder, so much stranger.

“I’m fine.” Hanzo blows out a shaky breath. “It is nothing.”

Jesse does touch him now, placing a broad, brown hand on his knee. Hanzo still can’t make himself unwind his arms from where he’s pressing them to his chest.

“That ain’t true.”

Jesse doesn’t seem angry about the lie, but his voice is firm. The way he’s looking at him, Hanzo knows he won’t get away with trying to deflect.

“No, it isn’t,” Hanzo sighs. He opens his mouth to try to explain, but his words dry up. Between the deeply ingrained instinct for secrecy and the surety that Jesse won’t understand—or worse, _would_ and be afraid, afraid like he rightly should be—his throat closes tight against an explanation. He doesn’t want Jesse to see him as some kind of monster, even if it’s selfish. But if there’s some kind of risk, no matter how miniscule, shouldn’t he know? Know, and be able to decide for himself if it’s worth it? If Hanzo is worth it?

Hanzo knows better than anyone else he has no business making decisions for other people.

“Here, first thing, let’s get off the floor,” Jesse says.

Jesse stands, his knees popping in protest, and offers Hanzo his hand. Hanzo takes it, lets Jesse pull him up. They sit on the edge of the bed, and Jesse lays his arm over Hanzo’s shoulders. Hanzo presses himself into Jesse’s side. He’s broad and warm and solid. A rock to Hanzo’s storm.

“You’re scaring me, Han.”

“I’m sorry,” Hanzo says. He closes his eyes and tips his head further into Jesse’s chest. “You must still be hurting.”

“Never mind that. I wanna know what made you scramble away from me like somethin’ bit you.”

Hanzo chews his lip for a moment. Being afraid to talk about his companions is silly, he reminds himself, given that everyone here has seen either his or Genji’s in the field.

“How much did Genji tell you about his dragon?” Hanzo asks.

Jesse stiffens beside him with a sharp breath. Hanzo closes his eyes and presses his lips into a thin line. Jesse has always treated the subject of the dragons, and the spiritual in general, with trepidation. _Not to be fucked with_ , in his words.

“Some. Sounded like a bad trip, to be honest.”

“Sometimes it feels that way,” Hanzo huffs. He lifts his hands to his face and rubs it. “They are aware of you. They—they woke me up a few minutes ago, in fact. Because they knew you were in pain.”

Jesse pulls away so he can turn and look Hanzo in the eye. Hanzo doesn’t want to meet Jesse’s eyes, doesn’t want to watch Jesse start to fear him, but he’s not a coward. The only light in the room is what’s leaking in through the window, but Hanzo has the warm brown of his irises memorized. He can overlay the planes of Jesse’s face, the scars, everything, on the dark shadows in front of him.

“That’s, well, that’s not bad, is it? Least they ain’t mad about me.” Jesse laughs weakly. It feels like he’s putting on a brave face. “Still don’t explain what spooked you.”

Hanzo swallows hard and steels himself.

“They wanted to do _something_. I think they thought they could help with your arm.”

Jesse tilts his head, goes quiet and still for a moment.

“How they figure?”

“I don’t know. They can affect me, affect what I feel.” Hanzo makes a few abortive gestures, trying to illustrate. Judging from what he can see of Jesse’s expression, he’s not helping. He sighs. “Maybe Genji could explain it better.”

“You think they could, though? Help?”

Hanzo gapes at him. Jesse knows better than almost anyone what a bad idea it would be. He’s the one who accompanies Hanzo for every visit to Dr. Ziegler, for every preventative treatment, whenever he’s on premises.

“Does it hurt that badly?” Hanzo asks softly, petting his hand down the small of Jesse’s back. Jesse shrugs, but that’s answer enough. The buzzing under his skin fades, replaced with a sudden, shuddering cold that punches the air out of Hanzo’s lungs. They've reached the end of their patience. Lights dance out of his left arm, a prismatic array of mostly green, cut through with blues and yellows. The shift in color is an artifact of the wider wavelength, their energy dispersing more cautiously. The air seems to crackle with energy, and Hanzo feels a sharp panic twist its way into him.

 _Careful_ he hears, though he knows no one spoke. _Precious_.

“Very precious,” Hanzo mumbles back, forgetting himself.

He looks at Jesse, who’s staring at him with his jaw slack. Hanzo knows, without looking, that they’ve taken no shape. They are only an amorphous mass of power and intent. Jesse’s fear is leaves an unpleasant tang in Hanzo’s mouth that he can’t swallow away.

“Are you still sure?”

“I’ll try anythin’ once,” Jesse says, laughing weakly.

“ _Jesse_.”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

Hanzo reaches out, brushes his left hand up Jesse’s spine. If he concentrates he can see the shape of the pain burning in Jesse’s nerves. One dragon curls gently around the trunk of Jesse’s spinal cord and the other looks right. In Hanzo’s mind’s eye, he can see Jesse, younger and whole, can see the constantly regenerating network of cells, making up tissues, making up a man, can see how part of it was lost forever. Hanzo bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood. He can now see how Jesse’s brain tried to work around the loss, the places it falls short.

He can see them muzzle the misfiring neurons with calm, coaxing macro structures into acceptance. He hears a thunderous groan from Jesse as the ghost of his loss is chased from his nervous system.

Content with their work, they unwind, settling back under his skin and between his bones. Jesse slumps into him, but Hanzo is more than quick enough to catch him. Jesse hums and nuzzles under Hanzo’s jaw. Not unconscious then. Hanzo’s fingers card through Jesse’s hair, a sudden nervous energy giving them autonomy.

“We should find Dr. Ziegler, have her examine you, there could be—”

“In the mornin’,” Jesse mumbles, almost slurs really. “’S worth it.”

“I hope so,” Hanzo whispers.

Jesse twists, pulling them both back into the bed and settling on top of Hanzo’s chest. The heavy, warm weight of him does more than a little to mollify him. He can also see the expanse of his back, can see no signs of hurt, and that’s most reassuring of all. The idea that the things he carries can do more than hurt is new. New, but not unwelcome. Hanzo presses a kiss to the top of Jesse’s head and sketches small circles into his skin with a thumb, an entirely human comfort he hopes suffices for the rest of the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, hello, I thought I was done but clearly not. I blame Tanis season 4. I'm hanging out with nonsense and drabbles at https://saltytothecore.tumblr.com/


End file.
